Chapter Text
[REGINA]
Sometimes Regina wonders why girls in movies hook up with their professors.
The sight of her Economics professor scratching his ashy beard (most likely flea-ridden) is anything but a turn-on. She swears he’s worn the same pasty white pants every day since her first day in this class. Why can’t her college have at least one hot brunette faculty member? Why is she left with this specimen?
Regina leans back in her seat, flipping her pin-straight hair over her shoulder. She huffs out an annoyed breath. However pathetic sitting here examining her professor is, she doesn’t have much else to do in this class. It’s not like she couldn’t make friends here–an easy smile and a wave would do the trick.
No, there’s just no one worth talking to.
She’s changed since high school. Regina used to love attention in any shape or form. Now, she just doesn’t care. It’s been a full year of college and, while she’s made friends, her sole good friend is her roommate. No more queen bee, no more large social circles. In a way, she’s been forgotten.
And she’s fine with that.
Really.
Today the room is crowded, stuffy, a result of the class being moved to a different room after someone let loose a bag full of Mediterranean house geckos in the previous lecture room. This new room has god-awful checkered wallpaper and barely half the number of seats, and Regina ends up next to someone she would usually stay far from–a student with an absence of deodorant and a tendency to stretch in people’s faces.
She pinches her nose with two impeccably manicured fingers, shifting as far away from him and the stench as possible. He barely spares her a glance. Good; he can keep his fumes to himself.
The lecture starts and Regina crosses one leg over the other, sighing as the professor’s droning voice echoes around the room. Dull, drab, boring. Just like any other day.
When the door clicks open half an hour later, Regina doesn’t notice. She’s too busy staring into space, counting the squares on the checkered wall. There are a lot of squares. Why are there so many squares?
Her brain barely registers the person walking up the stairs, the black bag that slams down next to her, the long legs that swing over the chair. Barely registers when the professor says dryly, “Mr. Heffley. So glad you’re joining us.”
Heffley?
Regina’s heard that name before, but she’s far too bored to care. She doesn’t even bother looking up. She continues counting the squares, heel tapping against her chair in annoyance.
It’s not until the lecture ends and Regina grabs her bag to leave this godforsaken classroom.
That’s when she bumps into human flesh. She smells body spray, feels the cold metal of a chain against her leg, before she’s stumbling back to see the eyeliner-covered, hurricane-haired menace staring down at her. Her stomach drops.
Right; that Heffley.
Regina narrows her eyes. “You.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Plastic girl.”
“Punk,” she retorts.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Still ever the mean girl, I see.”
Tendrils of resentment curl in her stomach, and she swallows, something that doesn’t go unnoticed to him. “I’m not a mean girl,” she tells him. “Not anymore.”
And then she’s shoving past him to the door, leaving Rodrick Heffley standing staring after her.
Just when things were becoming gloriously normal, the dregs of the past are coming up. Just her luck.
X X X
The next time Regina has the misfortune to encounter Rodrick Heffley is in an empty hallway, heading for the elevator. The hallway is silent, the only sound her heels impatiently clicking against the linoleum floor.
Of course Rodrick is there, phone in hand, leaning against the wall. He’s not waiting for the elevator, by the looks of it. Why is he even here, out of all places in the whole campus?
She walks up to the elevator doors, feeling his gaze on her like a laser beam. After a few seconds, it’s too painful to bear.
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, pressing the elevator button. He averts his eyes, but it’s obvious he’s just been staring at her like a deer caught in headlights. “You think I’m going to shove you in a locker?”
He scoffs, shoving his hand in the pockets of his jeans. “Please. As if you’d risk chipping a nail.”
“I’m sorry you don’t have French manicures to keep watch over,” Regina says dryly. “Some of us do.”
“Some of us need to stop making god-awful sounds tapping our heels against our chairs,” Rodrick says, raising his eyebrows.
Regina’s eye twitches. “You didn’t have to sit next to me,” she hisses.
“Well, it was the only free seat.”
“There were seats in the front,” she shoots back. “Maybe you’d actually hear what the professor was saying then!”
“No thanks, I’ll stay as far away from that man as possible,” Rodrick scoffs. “I don’t want to catch something. His beard’s probably–”
“–flea-ridden,” she says, as the same words come out of his mouth.
They stare at each other for a moment. Rodrick sighs.
“What are you doing here, Regina? I thought you’d go to some fancy college. Expensive, maybe. What are you doing in Nevada, of all places?”
Annoyed beyond reason, Regina jabs a finger at Rodrick’s chest.
“Listen here, punk. I came to Nevada to be far, far from Illinois. I don’t want a single reminder of high school, and you are not going to mess this up for me. Got it?”
He shakes his head and gives her an insufferably innocent look. “No.”
Regina huffs. The elevator doors open and she turns to head inside, shooting one last insult over her shoulder. “Stay away from me, you trashy virgin.”
The doors close, but she thinks she hears Rodrick mutter something:
“I’m not a virgin.”
Whatever. It’s not like it matters anyway.
X X X
[RODRICK]
Regina George is in Nevada.
Regina George is in Nevada.
Regina George is in Nevada.
The words repeat themselves in Rodrick’s mind throughout the week like a mantra.
No matter what other things are on his mind, the thought of Regina stays in his mind like a parasite.
Because as much as it’s probably his worst idea yet, as much as determined she is to avoid him, Rodrick is fascinated with her.
In a way, it’s like high school all over again. When Rodrick first transferred to North Shore three years ago and set eyes on Regina George, it was like seeing heaven. Her glossy blonde hair, her endless supply of miniskirts, the way she looked down on everyone as if they were something she’d scraped off the bottom of her Vince Camuto kitten heels–he never stood a chance. It didn’t help that he was something of a loser back then.
Not like he’s still not a loser now; his pathetic band is evidence of that. But he considers himself more experienced, now that he’s in his second year of college. Much more experienced, maybe even a little more mature. (Or is that stretching it?)
No, Rodrick is not going to have a repeat of high school. Back then he would have worshipped the ground Regina walked on. This time he finds himself wondering why, when Regina made eye contact with him for the first time in two years, she looked scared.
That’s an understatement; the woman looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Regina doesn’t get scared by anything, let alone “trashy virgins” (though he is one hundred percent not a virgin).
He recalls her words to him after the lecture–”I’m not a mean girl. Not anymore.”
Regina seems keen on leaving her high school days behind, and Rodrick intends to find out why.
X X X
Three days and a two-dozen can pack of Pepsi later, Plan Figure Regina George Out has been fucked up. Badly.
It’s not really Rodrick’s fault, per se; just a mistake. An accident. It could happen to anybody.
He’s with Chris, bassist of Löded Diper, preparing for a band practice in Chris’s mom’s garage. It’s embarrassing relying on Chris’s mom for practice, but the acoustics are good and the alternative is getting kicked out of their dorm for “disrupting the peace.” They’re at the gas station near campus, hauling a twenty-four can case of Pepsi to Chris’s truck.
“I parked in the back,” Chris tells him. “Just bring it down there.”
“Got it.” Rodrick hoists the case into his arms and carries it out the gas station door. It’s an obscene amount of caffeine for a four-member band to be consuming in one day, but he’ll do whatever it takes to keep this band going. He is not letting years and years of hard work go to waste.
Rodrick is just rounding the corner of the gas station building when he collides into someone with a smack.
Rodrick lowers the case, raising his head. To his surprise, he sees none other than Regina George–shining blonde hair glinting in the station lights, lip-gloss-covered mouth curled into a snarl, stiletto heels giving her enough of a height boost for her to glare laser beams directly into his eyes.
“Heffley!” she hisses. “Why are you everywhere?”
“Regina,” Rodrick half-trills, lowering the case even more. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He smiles at her. She doesn’t smile back. An awkward silence hangs in the air.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why do you have a twenty-four can case of soda?” Regina asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Band practice.” Rodrick hoists the case higher so it doesn’t slip out of his hands. Vaguely, he hears a faint ripping sound, but it’s probably nothing. “This is what keeps us going.”
“Right, your band. What was it called again? Full Asscrack or something?”
He exhales through his teeth. “Löded Diper.”
She wrinkles her nose–“Ew”–then shifts to walk past him.
Rodrick opens his mouth, about to pause her and ask her a series of deeply personal questions (phase one of Plan Figure Regina George Out) when he hears that ripping sound again.
Regina turns back. “God, fix those torn jeans of yours, I can hear them falling apart–”
At the speed of light, the plastic covering of the case splits open. A can falls, hitting Rodrick’s foot. He yelps, jumping back and dropping the case in the process.
And he doesn’t know how it happened–years later, he still doesn’t know how it happened–but a spray of sugary brown Pepsi sprays up, directly on Regina.
She screams.
“Shit,” Rodrick mutters, and he swears he sees his life flash before his eyes as Regina stamps her heel into the ground. Kind of like how skunks stamped before attacking–actually, not far off from the current situation.
She looks up at him, fists clenched so tight he can see the veins, bloody murder in her eyes. “Did you just spill fucking Pepsi on my Juicy Couture tracksuit?” she shrieks.
Chris runs over, stopping beside him. “Whoa, how did this happen?” he says, looking down at the spilled cans.
Regina fists Rodrick’s collar, yanking him in close enough for him to feel her breath on his cheek. (Her breath smells like strawberry–not that he cares. At all.)
“I don’t know what sick game you’ve got going on, Heffley, but if I have to lay a single eye on you again after this I am going to make you wish you were never born,” she spits.
Rodrick coughs in fear. “Regina, I’m sorry–”
“Oh, you’re sorry!” She releases his collar, and Rodrick massages his neck. “I don’t fucking care if you’re sorry, stay out of my life!”
She stalks off, heading for a silver convertible parked on the street, and Rodrick follows, not sure if he has a death wish or not.
“I really am sorry!” he shouts as Regina yanks the car door open, pausing to wring Pepsi out of the sleeve of her tracksuit. “Can’t I do anything to make it up to you?”
“You can start,” Regina snarls, “by leaving me ALONE!”
She slams her car door shut, sticks her middle finger out the window, and drives off.
Rodrick is left to stare after her, mouth slightly open like an idiot.
Beside him, Chris exhales. “Duuuuuude. You fucked that up real bad.”
Rodrick swallows. “Yeah. I did.”
“You better give up on her, man, the girl's a menace.”
He snorts. “Give up? I’m not the type to give up. Look, I haven't abandoned this band after all these years, right?”
Chris turns, giving him a blank stare. “Did you just compare Regina George to Löded Diper?”
Rodrick huffs. “Never mind. Just–I’m not going to give up, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Rodrick.” The bassist hoists the torn Pepsi case up and heads for the van. “Whatever you say.”